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It’s the weekend or an evening and you have a question about your dog’s health that is just begging an answer right now. You can’t get ahold of me – I am not answering your Facebook or Google+ messages in the last minute or so since you posted and you are getting worried something has happened to me or my family, but worse yet your question is not being answered!

What to do?

You are in luck! There are websites out there with veterinarians that are ready to answer your question!

Granted they may not have my wit and personality but some may. Also you may not receive the integrative or holistic touch that you really want, but when you are desperate for an answer, the vets on these websites are more than qualified to help you out in deciding if your question about your dog’s health can wait for my reply or if you need to get help sooner.

Just Answer Veterinarians (http://www.justanswer.com/sip/veterinary) is a cool site that has experts from many different fields including in this case veterinarians. Most of the time there is a veterinarian actually online and will answer your question in real time. The cost is $14-$38 depending on Urgency and Level of Detail Required and you have to be 100% satisfied.

Ask A Vet (https://askavet.com/) claims we’ve got America’s Best Veterinarians ready to answer your pet’s health, nutritional and behavioral questions. How can they say that? Well their vets are board certified in their area of expertise, which means they went to even more schooling than your typical vet and they have really focused on a specific area of veterinary medicine. They have sat for boards just like a medical doctor would that has board certification – certifications in cardiology (heart), oncology (cancer), neurology (nerves), etc.It is a flat fee of $18 and 5% of that goes to charity. Again there is a 100% money back guarantee.

VetLive (http://www.vetlive.com/) run by Drs Jed and Laci Schaible is a 24hour chat service of a hand selected group of veterinarians chosen by Dr Jed and Dr Laci. Most of the time though you will be dealing with the owners of the site. The price depends on time of day, demand and if a vet has to be woken out of bed to answer your question. From $17-$50 and $35-$70 for second opinions that would include detailed information from the previous vet visit.

Pawbly (http://www.pawbly.com/) is free! I figured I would tell you the best part of this website right away. It does not mean that the value is any less than the paid sites. Pawbly is advice and assistance for everything pet 24 hours a day from reliable, local experts. Pawbly allows you to find or seek out experts based on their responses to your questions, their location, or their availability. Several veterinarians including my internet friends and colleague Dr Krista Magnifico and Jana Rade are verified Pawbly Advisors. ?

With these choices you can find a veterinarian to answer your questions anytime. So the next time you can not get ahold of me then please try one of the above websites. Writing this article has given me an inspiration of doing a something similar with an integrative more holistic approach…hmmmm.

When looking for a good dog health website you could just type into Google “dog health” and I am sure you will get 1 if not all 4 of these websites on the first page – doghealth.com, petmd.com, pets.webmd.com, and, of course, wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Health, but although these sites have a lot of information, they are certainly not the “best” dog health websites out there. I am not even sure if there is a true 10 best dog health websites as it would be subjective and full of opinion.

For me, the “best” dog health websites are the ones that I HAVE to go to every morning to see if they have posted any new articles on their blog. Yes I know I have a blog here and of course it goes without saying that this is one of the 10 best dog health websites on the Internet today (I’m writing the article what else would I say), but since I am writing the article I am going to omit Dogkinetics.com from the list because I don’t read it everyday (I don’t even post to it everyday).

Every morning when I click on my browser I have a bunch of tabs open up to all the websites that I visit frequently. You know like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. One of those tabs is a website called feedly.com and on that page is a list of blogs that I want to check up on and see what they are writing about that day. In my opinion, this is the heartbeat of the topic of dog health. It is what I want to read to keep abreast of everything. The following is the list of those websites – THE 10 Best Dog Health Websites

The Biggies
These three websites are the heavy hitters in the dog health topic. They post several articles a day and have very large followings and some very prominent veterinarians and other professionals writing articles. If any web/blog managers read this post I would be happy to do a guest post for any of these –

Vet Street (http://www.vetstreet.com/) – Dr Marty Becker, the vet from Good Morning America, writes here, but he is not the only big name that writes here just probably the most well known. Other big names are Dr Nancy Kay from Speaking for Spot, Dr Narda Robinson a nationally known authority on scientifically based alternative medicine, Dr Patty Kuhly a well known blogging vet, Dr Andy Roark who is well known for his contributions to veterinary business and management and several other veterinarians that are respected in their field.

Pet Place (http://www.petplace.com/) – With articles titled such as Why Do Dogs Drool? and Yes Dogs Eat Glue and crazy pictorials such as Tongues Out!, how can you not like this website?

Mercola’s Healthy Pets with Dr Karen Becker (http://healthypets.mercola.com/) – My friend, colleague, and co-conspirator with many clients, Dr Becker provides the information for this website. What can I say, I decided to become a father of 4 and play soccer with them and she decided to really make a difference for pets and became voted one of the 10 best veterinarians in the Chicago area. She caught the attention of Dr Mercola and the rest is history. There is at least one new post everyday and has a more holistic natural approach to veterinary medicine.

The Lonely Veterinarians
These next 5 websites are blogs written by a single veterinarian and their life, trials, tribulations and of course the good times of being a veterinarian.

Speaking for Spot (http://speakingforspot.com/blog/) – Dr Nancy Kay’s, author of Speaking for Spot and Your Dog’s Best Health and contributor to Vet Street, personal blog. Dr Nancy has won many accolades and awards including the Dog Writers Association of America Award for Best Blog.

Elliot Garber The Uncommon Veterinarian (http://www.elliottgarber.com/) – Do you want an interesting read for veterinary medicine? Dr Elliot’s blog is the one to read then. He is an author and a skilled writer and in this blog writes and does podcasts with some of the more interesting career choices that veterinarians have made. Hey Dr Elliot, I’m a veterinarian that has chosen to do only chiropractic and acupuncture on horses and dogs – is that interesting enough? If you read his blog, you will find out that NO its not interesting enough! Oh and if you want to be a veterinarian, he takes you step by step to reach your goal.

The Non-Veterinarians
You may have read or heard me say that I do not think pet insurance is worth the money. Instead, if you open a savings account for your pet and have the dedication to place the monthly premiums in it that you normally would give the insurance company, you would be much better off. So you may be surprised that one of the blogs I read everyday is owned by a pet insurance company! Yeah you read that right, besides it being a good blog and has good information on pet health I realize that many people (OK most people) do not have the dedication to put money into a savings account for their pet so if you must buy pet health insurance this is one of two companies I would recommend, Embrace (the blog I read) and Trupanion.

Embrace Pet Insurance Blog (http://blog.embracepetinsurance.com/) – Laura Bennett co-founder of Embrace is not a veterinarian but rather a mathematician, but she is very good at writing about dog health. It helps that she also has guest posts from veterinarians, including my Internet friend and colleague Dr Patrick Mahaney. Laura and Dr Patrick do a podcast together as well. Laura is doing the dog health topic a good service as well as providing good pet insurance.

Last but most definitely not least –Dawg Business (http://dawgbusiness.blogspot.com/) – Jana Rade has become a friend because of her blog and my interest in it or maybe because of her great questions. She is just like a favorite client (the type of client that most vets dread that I thrive on) a dog owner that questions, EVERYTHING! Her blog is dedicated to her late Rottweiler Jasmine and their story together. Jasmine was a sickly dog and had a multitude of problems which provided Dawg Business with a wide variety of topics to cover in dog health. Jana has certainly made an impact in the dog health topic and has befriended many veterinarians and has numerous guest posts because of these friendships – you might even find a couple by a good looking vet there. I’ll help you out here’s his latest post there – Alternative Treatments For Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (DLE) in Dogs

You can be sure that every morning I am clicking on my feedly.com page and checking to see if any of these blogs have posted something new. I love to write and as with most writers, I also love to read and these blogs is what I love to read.

Cancer can affect all living creatures. 25% of dogs die of a cancer related illness. If you didn’t know this Pet Trust wants you to know.

Pet Trust is a Canadian charitable fund, based out of Toronto, dedicated to enhancing the health and well-being of dogs and cats. Pet Trust created the “Keep Cancer on a Leash” campaign to raise awareness of animal cancer. Monies donated to the campaign also go for the treatment of dogs and cats with cancer at the Ontario Veterinary College Mona Campbell Animal Cancer Centre at the University of Guelph.

If you haven’t seen the video “We Could Be Heros” from Pet Trust here it is –

The cool thing about this video is that you can put your own dog in the video. Click on the link on Pet Trust’s website that says “Put Your Pet In The Video” – upload up to 3 photos and your email address and your video link will be sent to you.

Canine Rehabiliatation, similar to human Physical Therapy, is becoming more prevalent. Just as in people there are modalities such as laser, electrical stimulation and specific exercises to help dogs recover from injuries and surgeries. More expansive facilities even have swimming pools and underwater treadmills.

If your dog has a severe injury that if you had the same type of injury that you believe you would have to have physical therapy to recover, then yes your dog can have canine rehab to help it recover. To find a veterinarian in your area that has had training in Canine Rehab go to - http://www.caninerehabinstitute.com/Find_A_Therapist.html

Simple answer to helping your dog lose weight, just as in humans – less calories and more exercise. There is one more component for some dogs, and for some people for that matter; it’s not HOW MUCH you eat that is as important as WHAT you eat!

For people avoiding whites such as sugar, flour (wheat/gluten) and milk (dairy) will go a long way in helping you to lose weight. For some dogs it is similar – avoiding grains (corn, wheat, oats, barley, rice) will help reduce inflammation and allow a dog to lose weight.

Helping Murphy lose weight required better eating habits and also some daily exercise, which, of course, is part of a healthy dog’s life. Every morning, Murphy and I walk for 15-20 minutes and another 30-45 minutes in the …

If a dog shows signs of being overweight consulting a veterinarian is crucial in adopting a weight loss programme supported by the right health nutrition. Veterinary practices are geared to monitor controlled weight loss in dogs…